


he had no gestures to give (he wondered how many more nights his mission would last)

by possibilist



Series: Fool's Gold Carmilla HSAU Deleted Scenes [6]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, I apologize in advance, there's a lot of ridiculous hollstein fluff though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3181112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deleted scenes for Chapter 12 of Fool's Gold, or when Carmilla goes over to Laura's house at 9 am on a Saturday to help her get ready for the party, and also some background with Will helping Carmilla. canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he had no gestures to give (he wondered how many more nights his mission would last)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatsthedamage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsthedamage/gifts).



> olivia & bianca ask me to do these for fun. i did not come up with hsau. i am not interjecting my own issues into these fics. i make no money from these. they tell me which scenes to put in. i add little details. the scenes are canon.
> 
> WARNINGS: heavily implied abuse.

**he had no gestures to give (he wondered how many more nights his mission would last)**

.

_he would sing/ the song that her long absence implied, though his voice/ was not good and even he distrusted his voice/ he hadn’t meant to go on so long. he hadn’t meant/ it. but the song would not go./ and the words no longer sounded like words./ though he sang with his tongue behind his teeth_  
—mark levine, ‘then for the seventh night’

//

It’s six in the morning on a Saturday.

You groan, because really, this is getting ridiculous, and you consider yourself to be a decently resolved and disciplined person with most things—you’ve had it, quite literally, beaten into you—but not, apparently, with Laura.

You check your phone for text messages, then you check your Facebook—the last thing on your wall is a selfie with Laura from Thursday afternoon, so nothing new there. You  _know_ why you’re relieved Laura doesn’t seem to have any interest in dating anyone else, but it’s not your favorite thing to admit to yourself.

But you—well, might be able to want to love her one day. Some day. Maybe, like, tomorrow. Because it’s her birthday.

And, whatever, she has a party today, and it’s just she and her dad setting up, so she probably won’t really mind help, and you think her dad legitimately likes you—which is new, but you’ll take it—so after a few minutes hiding under your blanket, you shuffle out of bed with a groan. You’re still sore, and you go to your bathroom and take off your t-shirt—Laura’s t-shirt, which you haven’t returned or washed, which is getting a little gross at this point, and it doesn’t really smell like her anymore, so you’ll resign yourself tomorrow—and take it off and then slide down your boxers and step out of them. While you wait for the shower to heat up, you think that in another world you might almost  _enjoy_  a pool party, or at least you’d like seeing Laura in a swimsuit. And swimming in the pool with her. There would be a lot of skin, you think, that you’d probably get to touch by just goofing around, and she’d probably laugh a lot. 

You’re not really ashamed about your body, you think, not in the way other people probably are: you’re pretty, you know that; you’re ashamed of your bruises and scars and how they’re  _always there_.

But still, Laura in a swimsuit.

Despite your bruises, you focus on her image—which is probably a violation on a number of levels—but, really, it’s not the worst shower ever.

//

You change your shirt about ten times, which is absolutely ridiculous, but that seems to be a pattern of yours lately when it comes to Laura. You finally pick one of your favorites, one that you’re pretty sure she hasn’t seen yet, and you roll up the sleeves, because it’s still hot as  _fuck_ outside. 

You look at your present—in its neat box with nice wrapping paper that’s not quite folded nicely around the corners, and you sigh and rip the paper off and set about re-wrapping it. For the third time.

Finally, you pick at some muesli for a little while in the kitchen and think it’s probably late enough at this point.

**Carm (8:27 am):** _are you awake?_

**Laura (8:31 am):** _Yeah! :) Good morning!!_

**Carm (8:31 am):** _good morning to you too_

**Carm (8:32 am):** _I was wondering if you wanted help setting stuff up?_

**Laura (8:33 am):** _I’d love that, thanks Carm :)_

//

Carmilla rings your doorbell at 9:02 am exactly, which makes you laugh a little, because—you know this because she sleeps over at your house a lot, and it makes Laura happy, really happy, so you’ve not said a thing—Carmilla doesn’t fully wake up until at least eleven.

But she gives you a shy hug when you let her in and take her present with a soft smile, and she looks more awake now than you’ve ever seen her before noon.

Laura rushes down the stairs and hops off the last two, and you can’t help but grin, because you’re really a lucky, lucky dad; Carmilla laughs at Laura good-naturedly, and Laura wraps her in a really big hug—the kind of hug really only Laura knows how to give. Carmilla holds her for a long time, rests her chin on Laura’s shoulder, and you had kind of asked Danny last week of she knew  _what_ was happening here, and she had shrugged and told you that it’d be better not to ask. It’s fine, because you like Carmilla and you’re pretty sure Laura would tell you pretty much immediately.

“Happy almost birthday,” Carmilla says. “Or, um, it’s actually your birthday already in most of Australia.”

Laura grins and kisses Carmilla on the cheek, and Carmilla’s face flushes for a second, and yeah—Laura would tell you.

Carmilla slings her purse down on the couch and then asks, “So, um, what can I help—what do you want me to do?”

Laura looks absolutely delighted that apparently Carmilla is going to be over here for the  _whole day_ , and she tugs on Carmilla’s hand.

“We can hang streamers first!”

“Aren’t you a little short of that?” Carmilla asks.

You laugh as they head into the pantry to get down Laura’s party supplies you’d gotten at Target the day before together. 

“You’re short too, for the  _last time_ , Carm.”

You go to your office and check on some of your online banking for a few minutes and listen to their good-natured bickering for a little while, making sure you’ve not forgotten any bills—you don’t, but it’s good to be sure—and you’re happy when they laugh.

//

A little while later you go down the stairs and you don’t see either of them. You look around the kitchen and there are two half-eaten bowls of cereal left messily on the counter near the sink, and then you catch sight of Carmilla in the back yard, or, really, the back porch, sweeping it with a broom.

You walk outside and she jumps a little when she hears the door open.

“Did Laura send you out here?” you ask.

She shakes her head. “No, she went to shower and, um—I thought, yeah, you’d probably want us to do this anyway at some point.”

Probably not, but, “Thanks, kiddo.”

She nods and keeps sweeping quietly. She’s quiet in general unless she’s with Laura, but not as much around you anymore.

“Does Laura usually have pool parties?” she asks after a while.

“For pretty much as long as I can remember,” you say.

She smiles. “That’s cool. I mean, your pool is nice, so—might as well use it.”

“Definitely.”

You wait for a few minutes and then ask her about a few bands—she’s quite enthusiastic about music, you’ve figured out, and she knows a  _lot_ of it, quite a bit about stuff you really like, and so it’s always easy conversation. She’s in the middle of a quietly excited ramble about Joan Jett when Laura comes outside in a t-shirt and shorts, fresh from a shower.

“Why are you out here?” she asks.

You look to Carmilla and say, “I asked Carmilla to sweep the porch a bit.”

“Okay,” Laura says a little warily, and then says, “Carm, let’s go make a party playlist!”

She groans but hands the broom to you immediately.

“I’ll see you when I’m released from pop hell,” she mumbles, and Laura scowls, and you laugh.

//

You’re both waiting for your laptop to unfreeze—it’s whirring powerfully, and you’re fanning the bottom so that maybe it’ll cool down faster, and Carmilla is reclined on your bed, reading. She’s left a few books over at your house, so there’s always stuff here for her to finish, you guess. You’ve picked a couple up too, but you’ve been busy with your homework, so you’ve not gotten so far. You don’t know how she reads as much as she does.

Your computer is taking forever, but you laugh at the memory of a few weeks ago when she’d been over and you’d absentmindedly put down a chocolate chip cookie on the trackpad and watched with wide eyes as she’d gone a very educated talk about someone named Luce Irigary, who had a lot to say about feminism, and—you’d completely forgotten about the cookie until you turned back to your computer and saw the melted chocolate from the bottom of the cookie barely oozing out from the bottom. 

You’d started laughing hard and Carmilla had turned to you with a raised eyebrow and walked over and then joined in your laughter when you’d picked up the cookie. You’d gotten some of the chocolate smeared all over your fingers, and she was close enough that you’d reached out and put a clump of it on the tip of her nose, and she’d yelped. You’d licked the rest of your chocolate off your fingers, and she’d stared for a few seconds before shaking her head and mumbling and going to find a tissue in your bathroom.

You really do have a really great time pretty much every day with Carmilla, and you’re glad you met her, glad you gave her a second chance, glad she’s let you in as much as she has, because it seems like you might be the only person in the world who she’s let in as much as she has you.

You look over at her—your computer has finally cooled down, and you want her input on your playlist now, because you  _know_  she likes at least a little rap—and your breath is kind of taken away for a few seconds, because some sunlight is streaming through your window and some dust is floating in it and her face is half shadow, half light, smooth and perfect, and her hair is shiny and dark, and she has these perfect curls. You’ve woken up next to her plenty of times to know that she kind of looks like this all the time, and she puts makeup on, but not actually that much.

“Carm?” you ask, glancing at your reflection in the mirror once more.

“Hmm?”

“Wanna do my hair?”

She glances up at you from her book, looks at you in a curious way, and you have to look away, because there’s no way to compare yourself to  _that_.

“Sure, cupcake.”

You smile, then, and look up, because she’s thrown her book down on your bed and is sliding off of it. “Come on,” she says, waving you into your bathroom.

You sit sideways on your toilet so that she’s  _actually_ taller than you—and, honestly, she’s short too—and then she starts brushing your hair softly. She probably doesn’t need to—it’s not tangled—but her hands are gentle, so you don’t say anything. No one’s brushed your hair for you since your mom died, after all.

After a few minutes—you’d closed your eyes at some point—she clears her throat. “So, what should we do, Miss Hollis?”

You giggle a little and shrug. 

She waits with a raised eyebrow.

Heat rushes to your cheeks when you say, “I really like that—um, when you do yours in a bun.”

She smiles softly, in this way you really love, and she says, “Sure thing.”

You turn back around and she gathers your hair patiently, carefully, never pulling too hard, and then puts in a hair tie, twists a few times, and then secures it.

It’s cooler, to not have hair on your neck, and it helps with your blush, because, really, you’re almost sixteen, and that didn’t really take any time at all, and you should be able to do that.

She runs her cool hands down your neck to rest on your shoulders for a minute, then squeezes gently.

“Take a look,” she says, stepping back. 

You stand and walk to the mirror. She’s grinning behind you, because it really does look nice.

“Live up to your demanding standards?”

You laugh and nod, turn around. “Thank you,” you say sincerely. 

Her breath catches for a second and then she shrugs. “I’ve had lots of practice, cutie, not a problem.”

You smile and brush past her out of the bathroom.

“Laura,” she says, softly, when she follows. 

You turn around, because the use of your first name is always a little unexpected. “Yeah?”

“You look—pretty,” she says, with a little downcast smile.

It means the world to you, even though you don’t really believe it, not compared to Carmilla.

“You look pretty too,” you say, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m going to regret this, but, come on, let’s finish that playlist.”

She doesn’t groan too badly when you listen to the entire One Direction album, resting on your bed, her head on your chest, and that’s pretty good, all things considered.

//

Carmilla helps you make sandwiches for lunch; you get out a bunch of nice deli meats and cheeses but she makes herself a peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off and then opens it again and sticks some potato chips in it—with a little apologetic smile, and you say, “Hey, kid, more meat for me,” and she grins.

She makes Laura something kind of messy with turkey and lettuce, and they sit in front of the TV watching  _America’s Next Top Model_ reruns animatedly.

You make sure the cake is baking properly and then continue to make hamburger patties, and eventually Carmilla wanders back into the kitchen with their plates, puts the rest of Laura’s sandwich in a bag and sticks it in the fridge before she says, “Um, can I help with anything else?”

“We can decorate outside a little bit while Laura finishes up in here.”

She nods, grabs her sunglasses. “Sure.”

Helping—apparently, at this point, for Carmilla—essentially means her lounging in a chair and directing you around the yard to where things look best.

“You know, you could, like, manually assist me,” you say with a laugh.

She scoffs. “Mark,” she says, “we both know I’m suited to a leadership role.”

You can’t help the laugh that booms from your chest, and she grins.

//

It’s a little after that when you walk inside to start on making a few salads, and Carmilla expertly whips up potato salad in about five minutes, which puts your pasta salad to shame, before yawning.

You’re about to tell her she can rest—you’re pretty much ready, and the party doesn’t start for another few hours, but Laura calls to her from the living room that some show they like is on, and Carmilla looks to you for some sort of permission.

“No one says no to Laura, right?” you ask, and she smiles a little hesitantly. “Go on, kiddo. Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” she says.

An hour later, you find the two of them on the couch, kind of clumsily on top of each other, fast asleep.

///

You’re about to rush into the house, because you have  _no idea_ what your sister is going to say to Laura, and she’s never told you, and you  _really_ want to flip over a table or something, because you’ve spent years trying to help, trying so hard to care for Carmilla, because she’s your sister and you love her more than anyone else in the world, and Laura has  _no idea_ how bad things can get.

/

Like—a week and a half ago, you got home and Carmilla—who, really, is kind of small; you’ve been taller than her for a while—was collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. It hadn’t been this bad for a while, because your heart shot up in your chest and you scrambled to put down your backpack and then you were on your knees on the hardwood next to her. There was a little cut at her hairline that had bled more than it looked like it should, but that wasn’t really your first priority; you’ve read enough about first aid that you checked to make sure her breathing sounds okay first, and then you carefully felt for pulses on both of her wrists. She usually wakes up, though, and tears pricked at your eyes because she  _wasn’t_ waking up. You sat for a minute or so, just saying her name every few seconds, before she came too groggily and tried to sit up quickly, and you said, “Hey, hey, it’s just me,” before she sighed and laid her head back down on the floor.

“Can you move?” you asked after she seemed a little more coherent.

“Yeah,” she fought out roughly, and you nodded. 

“Do you think—is anything broken?”

She shook her head with a hiss, and you didn’t know if you  _quite_ believed her, but still. You helped her slowly sit up, and when you brushed back her bangs you had to hold back tears again, because one of her eyes had already almost swollen shut—and you felt a rush of anger all through you, and you took a few deep breaths to calm down a little.

“We gotta clean you up, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

It’d been touch and go for a few seconds getting her to her feet, and she’d fought a little with a whine when you tried to slip her arm over your shoulder.

“My ribs hurt,” she said quietly, and you understood.

You tried to be as gentle as you could, getting her up the stairs, but you had to hold onto her some places, and it’d taken a long time, and she hadn’t even tried to fight back tears near the top.

You tried to stop them—you know crying will only make everything hurt worse, and you really would take your sister angry over this any day—by saying, “It’s a good thing I’m in football; you’re getting heavy as  _fuck_ , Carmilla.”

She scoffed quietly, sniffling. “Bullshit. I haven’t grown in years.”

You laughed—just for her, because she tried—and she smiled as best she could in your direction.

You propped her up against the counter in her big bathroom—you’re pretty sure it’s bigger than her bedroom—and started to run a bath.

She started to cry again, and you turned around, went over to her.

“Should we do the concussion test?”

She rolled her eyes—or, tried, because one was almost closed and already turning purplish-blue against the rest of her skin.

You gestured for her to lift her arms as much as she could so you could get her shirt off and asked, “Who’s president?”

“Ronald Reagan,” she said, rough and pained, but still with a sarcastic laugh underneath. “It’s 1980 and our hockey team just pulled off a big upset at the winter olympics, the Cold War is still ridiculous and occurring, and, sadly, early punk is losing its edge.”

You laughed, because—she was at least okay mentally, or, mostly—and you helped her get her shirt off, which you thought was actually Laura’s, but you didn’t ask her that now.

You tried not to gasp at the bruises kind of  _everywhere_ : her abdomen, all over her ribs, one starting to form at the waist of her jeans. “Come on, let’s get you out of these.”

She tried to make a joke, something about how your sister wasn’t the ideal girl to get out of her pants—which you’d heard before—but halfway through, she started coughing  _painfully_ , and you stood up and steadied her, got her breathing sort of steadily again after some pained gasps.

“So, how was Laura today?” you asked, getting her pants off.

She sighed. “Beautiful and kind,” she admitted.

You smiled, standing up turning around to turn the water off. It was still a little hot, but Carmilla usually didn’t care.

She was wrapped in a towel when you turned toward her again, her bra and panties discarded on her clothes, and she walked toward you with a resigned sigh.

You helped her into the big tub without looking at her body as much as you can—it takes a modicum of effort on your part, because it’s kind of tall—and took a washcloth and wiped off the cut at her hairline—which, in somewhere where this didn’t happen—she’d probably need a few stitches. But you knew she wouldn’t go to the doctor’s, wouldn’t tell you—this has happened for  _years;_ you’ve tried to help for  _years_ , and this was the best you can do.

You left her in the tub for a few minutes to go grab pajamas and make a cup of tea, adding more honey than you normally would, because,  _goddamn it_ , she’s  _hurt_.

You brought the tea and pajamas into the bathroom, and she was still in the tub, eyes closed. You rifled through her medicine cabinet and got some pain medication ready, then a her towel.

“Come on,” you said. 

She tried to breathe deeply, once, before she sat up, but you can see that didn’t really help anything, because you had to help her sit up, her grip on your hand tight.

You got her out of the tub kind of clumsily, and you felt bad, because you know that hurt more than she was already hurting, and her hair got your tshirt kind of wet, but you didn’t say anything.

“Can you get into your PJs okay?”

She tried to roll her eyes again. “I’m not an infant.”

You nodded—really, that was weak, and you both know it—and looked pointedly at the pills on the counter next to her tea before going to her room.

A few minutes later she shuffled in and handed you a hairtie. 

You know by now that she just wanted you to put it up off her neck, because her head hurt too much to really dry it, but her ribs were too sore to put it up herself.

You were as gentle as you could possibly be, working through her tangled curls with your fingers softly before you gathered her hair patiently and twisted it into a loose bun. You rested your hands on her shoulders for a moment before saying, “If you want to watch more Glee, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

She scoffed and climbed into bed slowly. You pulled her duvet up and she curled a little onto your chest and said, “Fine, but, for the record, I’m only watching this because Laura won’t shut up about it, not because I actually enjoy it whatsoever.”

You didn’t tell her that that’s probably not more cool, but she fell asleep pretty fast anyway.

/

Carmilla is inside with Laura, and she doesn’t know how many times you’ve watched YouTube tutorials on what to do in an emergency if someone has a collapsed lung; she doesn’t know how many times you’ve brought Carmilla breakfast the day after a really bad night and she’d not been able to see out of an eye; she doesn’t know how many bones Carmilla’s broken, how many times she’s had split lips and cuts that should have stitches.

Laura doesn’t know how much you want to help.

Laura doesn’t know how much you still can’t stop anything.

Laura comes outside and is  _angry_ , and you  _know_ that she knows  _something_ , that Carmilla’s told her something, maybe everything, maybe more than you do.

You’re furious—at yourself, at your sister, but, most of all: at the person who’s hurting her—she’s your  _sister_ , and you love her.

Laura doesn’t know how many times you’ve been terrified of Carmilla dying.

//

Everything smells like chlorine, and you want to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> check out carmilla's hsau, fool's gold, on ao3 or tumblr. track the tag [#carmilla hsau] for general updates, fanart, answered asks, & lots of other cool stuff. bianca's tumblr is felixdawkins; olivia's is turnandchasethewind.
> 
> new fool's gold chapters are posted every tuesday & thursday at 5-6 pm EST.


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